The subject matter herein relates generally to electrical contacts and, more specifically, to crimp contacts that are compressed to grip one or more conductors and establish an electrical connection.
Conventional crimp contacts include a mating end that electrically engages a mating contact (e.g., socket or pin contact) and a loading end that includes a passage configured to receive one or more conductors (e.g., a stripped cable wire). Using a crimping tool, the crimp contact may be compressed or deformed at the loading end thereby causing the crimp contact to grip the conductors within the conductor passage. The deformed crimp contact (or crimped contact) may then be inserted into a contact cavity of a connector housing where the crimped contact is positioned to engage the mating contact from another connector.
Dimensions of crimp contacts may be set by industry or customer-specified requirements. For example, an outer diameter of the crimp contact may be sized so that a crimping tool may engage the crimp contact and compress the crimp contact in a predetermined manner. An inner diameter that defines the conductor passage may be sized to effectively engage the conductors when the crimp contact is deformed. In order to satisfy the industry or customer-specified dimensions, crimp contacts are typically machined. For example, a conductive material in the form of a block or rod may be machined (e.g., by a screw machine) to form the conductor passage of the crimp contact as well as other features. Such crimp contacts may be called screw-machine contacts. However, these manufacturing methods may be costly to perform and the removed conductive material is no longer usable.
In addition, in some electrical connector assemblies, it may be desirable to have a plurality of crimp contacts where at least some of the crimp contacts project different distances from a side of the connector housing. By projecting different distances from the side of the connector housing, a user may control an order or sequence in which the crimp contacts electrically engage the corresponding mating contacts. To provide crimp contacts that project various distances away from the connector housing, the above machining methods may be adjusted to form crimp contacts of different lengths. Again, such manufacturing methods may be costly to operate and waste the conductive material. Changing a manufacturing process to adjust the final dimensions of the crimp contacts may further increase the overall costs.
Accordingly, there is a need for crimp contacts that may be manufactured in a less costly manner than some known processes for manufacturing crimp contacts. There is also a general need from alternative crimp contacts than those currently available today.